It’s been four months since Kat and Alfie Moon (Jessie Wallace and Shane Richie) were last in EastEnders. When the couple left in January to find Kat’s long lost son, Charlie Slater had just died and Alfie had discovered that he had a brain tumour.

Now the former pub owners are back on our screens continuing their search in the Irish fishing town of Redwater, that isn’t as sleepy as it looks.

The Moons meet farm owners Adeen (Fionnula Flanagan) and Lance (Ian McElhinney), who have been guardians to Andrew (Peter Campion), the man Kat believes is the son she gave up for adoption, and priest Dermott (Oisin Stack), who is actually Kat’s son. Only Dermott and Kat don’t know about their connection and Adeen and Lance will do anything to keep it a secret.

Meanwhile Alfie is struggling with his health and constantly urging Kat to take a moment to think before she wheels in and blows people’s lives apart. Their sparring – Kat thinking with her heart (and gob) and Alfie with his head – harks back to their time in the soap, even if their wardrobe isn’t so brassy these days.

The show gets pretty dark at times (Picture: BBC)

Anyone tuning in expecting to see a spin-off in a similar vein to Slaters In Detention or Pat And Mo must have got a shock. It’s dark before the title credits roll, with Una Palliser’s haunting This Native Land Of Mine floating out across the water as a young mother loses her life in a boating accident.

And while we’ve only seen a glimpse of Adeen’s steely core there’s a sense that there’s much worse to come from her.

Dermott turning out be an unhinged murderer is probably as ‘EastEnders’ as Redwater gets. Otherwise Alfie is the only person who calls Kat ‘Kat’, and there’s no mention of Walford, Albert Square or the Queen Vic.

At one point Kat says: ‘Where I used to live we were in and out of each other’s houses, each other’s business, each other’s knickers’ and the description is spot on enough for soap fans to get where she’s talking about without alienating casual viewers.